


everyone is to blame

by netherfriends



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abusive Parents, Angst, Attempted Cannibalism, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Human Sacrifice, Hurt TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by Richard Siken, Sad Toby Smith | Tubbo, Starvation (implied), Violence, also tommy and tubbo are like 6 in this, because damn his work is good, this is kind of a realistic minecraft au?, well sorta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/netherfriends/pseuds/netherfriends
Summary: They whisper about him in the dead of nights, voices loud and shaky like dead leaves. They get louder and louder, and they continue to whisper to him as he sleeps. He dreams of hands, of smoke and blood. He dreams that the blood drips down and ruins his clothes, staining his pants a licorice color. He dreams, and dreams, and when he gets up he never wakes up.ORtommy runs late at night, into the call of the woods
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & Technoblade, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	everyone is to blame

Trust no one. You are expendable, a burden. Why would you tell this to your child, who is about to go to sleep? _As soon as your eyes are shut we will begin to plot your demise. If I were you, were smart, I’d stay awake, ever vigilant and terrified._

_\- Richard Siken_

.................................................................................................................................................................................................

They whisper about him in the dead of nights, voices loud and shaky like dead leaves. They get louder and louder, and they continue to whisper to him as he sleeps. He dreams of hands, of smoke and blood. He dreams that the blood drips down and ruins his clothes, staining his pants a licorice color. He dreams, and dreams, and when he gets up he never wakes up.

Despite these words, taunting him as he sleeps and tugging him backwards and backwards he falls asleep, locked into a blind trust and no escape. One day, he wakes up from a dream of hands and finds himself being choked. The person will not let go, no matter how Tommy struggles and claws at the hands gripping his windpipe. Crushing every pipe dream the wondrous child might have.

And then the hands are gone, but Tommy can't seem to get enough _air_ \- he claws at his throat, significant with the absence of hands but he still can't _breathe_ \- each breath is like labor, and it hurts more and more. There's a pregnant pause, where Tommy tries to catch himself. But he is falling and falling, hands pulling him down and not letting go-

Tommy was only six years old but a part of him died.

\---

Vanity, in a fairy tale, will make you evil. Vanity in the real word will drive you nuts. Vanity makes you say things like “I deserved a better life than this.”

_\- Richard Siken_

.................................................................................................................................................................................................

The hands that stopped Tommy's demise push him towards a path of dismay and torture. They nurture him, with honey dripping in their voices and poison in their eyes. He trusts them, lets their hands move him to places. Believes every word that falls from their mouth. They show him new people, tell him that this will be his new family. He didn't know when he had lost his old one.

 _It doesn't matter_ , the voices whisper to him, words pounding in his head so much like last time, _they are **family** , they will **care**_. So he stays with the people, and falsely believes that they care, because they had told him. He doesn't understand, when they bring him into the woods and say that they'll come back soon. He follows blindly, because they care and they are family. Or so he was told.

He curls into a ball on the forest floor, grass staining his pants and fingers turning a delicate shade of blue. It is cold, and Tommy is only in a light sweater. It is so cold, but he waits for the sign that his family are coming back, waits for the glow of a lantern, guiding him back to home. 

No one comes and Tommy freezes alone.

The sun is barely rising over the horizon, but Tommy is so _cold_. For once, he ignores the words of family and ventures into the forest, calling them by the names they had let him use. His lips, purple and chapped, croak out words meant for family.

_When someone is trying to kill you, never go back._

He doesn't know what that means, he has never learned to read, but he finds the words engraved into his mind. He pays no mind to them and continues to search for his family.

He's found by a old elderly couple one day, and they lead him to their house. They give him warm food that satisfies the cravings of his stomach, and warm him up by the fire. The husband comes up behind the young boy with a ax, eyes drawn to the soft, plump skin of a child. The meat will taste good, it always does.

The ax misses and Tommy runs.

\---

And at this point in the story so many things have gone wrong, so many bad decisions made, that it’s a wonder anyone would want to continue reading.

_\- Richard Siken_

.................................................................................................................................................................................................

Tommy runs and runs and runs, until he finds a boy. The boy is young and his ribs show clearly through his thin shirt. Tommy finds the boy and offers him the bread that the elderly couple had given him.

The boy takes it and the duo continue onward, together this time.

Except this time, it is not Tommy who is fooled. It is the young boy who does not know the letters of his own name.

"Toby," he had croaked to Tommy, in a voice that was clearly suffering from lack of water.

Tommy had nodded, "Tubbo." 

Toby didn't correct him.

Toby didn't mind, his name had been given by the people. The people who screamed at him, and locked him away. They didn't feed him nor did they care for him. He liked Tubbo better, and decided to refer to himself as that from now on, for it had been the name given to him by the wide blue eyed blond who gave him bread.

The duo were wondering, they had been for a while, trying to find something to sustain their necessities. A girl beckoned Tubbo near, with the empty promises of shelter and warmth. He forgot to look back to see if his companion was following.

He followed her, letting his guard down. She laid him down in a bed, and told him to rest. He did. 

When he awoke, he was in a clearing, and his wrists were burning. The smell was unpleasant, like scorched human flesh. The smell made Tubbo want to vomit his insides out, but the smell also attracted a pack of wolves. They snapped at him, eyeing the small boy hungrily. 

He was the meal.

The chants of the girl were heard, a repeated screaming of 'sacrifice!'

He did the only thing he could, and ran. At first he screamed for Tommy, his friend, the boy who had helped him, but then stopped after realizing that he would waste his breath faster that way.

It was no use anyway, the wolves were catching up to him. He was a small boy with thin limbs and not enough nutrients. He was going to die.

Except, not today.

He fell, falling down and down and down.

All the wolves stopped, watching as their prey fell off the cliff. 

And there went their meal, screaming and sobbing and skin burned at the wrists.

He blacked out halfway through the fall, and was unconscious when a hybrid scooped him up and enderpearled away. He was unconscious when he was laid in a bed, and fed potions to keep him alive. He was unconscious when hushed discussions were made about him, what they should do about him.

He was awake, when disaster struck.

He awoke to a piglin, or a form of one, cradling a potion in one hand. He screamed.

The people, they had told stories of monsters. Of mobs that lurked around, feasting on flesh and bones. They attacked mercilessly and brutally, uncaring about anything but their lust for destruction.

Surely, he would die now.

He backed away, until he hit a wall. He was in a bed, he was in a house. A _shelter_.

He continued to scream, even as the piglin-person disappeared and someone else appeared. This new person had big wings, black as though tormenting him of his woe. 

He stopped screaming when he lost his voice.

The person with wings approached slowly, and sat a little ways from Tubbo.

"I'm Philza."

Tubbo tried to wrack his mind for any information of this Philza, but found none. Philza was wearing a warm smile, but Tubbo knew that those were more often fake than not. 

"Tubbo." He managed to croak out, severely dehydrated and without a voice. Somehow, Philza understood the poor boy.

"Tubbo, I can help. Will you let me help?"

Everyone else had also said they would help, but they **lied**.

Despite himself, Tubbo nodded.

\---

There is no way to win. Everyone is hungry and the weak get tricked and do not survive.

_\- Richard Siken_

.................................................................................................................................................................................................

"Find Tommy." Were the first words Tubbo had said when he had got his voice back. Days of healing, potions that made him feel fuzzed, and food that made him cry out in relief.

And finally, now he could talk.

The piglin-thing did not visit him anymore. 

But now, the piglin-thing came into the room. He was less menacing than before, without a cape and weapons. His tusks shined clearly though, glinting and reminding Tubbo how easily they could tear into his flesh.

The piglin-thing asked what Tommy looked like.

Tubbo told him.

As the piglin-thing left, Philza spoke to Tubbo.

"Techno is our best hunter, if he can't find your friend, then no one can."

The words did not comfort the younger boy, and only made him pray more for Tommy's safety each waking second.

When Techno came back, Tommy in tow, Tubbo cried.

"Tom, Tommy!" Tubbo had blubbered out, clutching the boy. Tommy held onto the fragile smaller, patting his back gently.

"Tubbo!"

\---

The world is full of things already, the world is vast and wide and full of grace and you will always be given the benefit of the doubt. Except that isn’t true now, is it?

_\- Richard Siken_

.................................................................................................................................................................................................

Tommy meets Techno in the woods.

He had kept going on, heart crushed with the loss of a friend. He ends up sobbing, crying out between breaths for his family.

No one comes, and yet Tommy is disappointed anyway.

But someone does come, a tall figure in the shadows. Tommy notices Techno when it's too late, and Techno springs from the shadows. He stares down at the young boy, and Tommy's thoughts are pounding in his head.

_He's going to **die**._

Instead, Techno offers a hand.

"Tubbo is this way."

Tommy doesn't want to grab the piglin's hand, in fact he wants to run far away. But he wants to see Tubbo, so he lets the piglin guide him. Eventually, they're walking on a path, and the path opens up to a house. When Tommy looks to Techno for confirmation, he nods.

And then Tommy is hugging Tubbo, and he only then notices how much smaller the boy is compared to him. It just makes Tommy want to protect him more.

There is a man, shorter than the piglin, with big black wings. Tommy wants to reach out and touch them, stroke the feathers, play with them. Tommy doesn't.

"I'm Philza, you are Tommy, yes?" The man (Philza) crouches down to his level, offering a smile.

Tommy nods, avoiding the other man's eyes.

"Are you hungry?"

Tommy shakes his head, but his stomach betrays him and rumbles.

Philza chuckles, and then gives him some bread. Tommy wants to refuse it, because it makes him think of the elderly couple, but he is hungry and these people have been kinder than the others.

The bread makes him feel better and temporarily fills the ache in his stomach.

\---

Imagine that the world is made out of love. Now imagine that it isn’t.

_\- Richard Siken_

.................................................................................................................................................................................................

Tommy soon learns that the piglin is named Techno, and that there is another. The other is named Wilbur, and he has a box called a guitar that makes pretty sounds. Tommy likes listening to Wilbur play, likes watching the other's calloused fingers strum the strings expertly. 

At first, Tommy only stays because Tubbo is happy.

Then, he stays because he's tired of constantly running into dangers in the forest, forever lost.

Now, he stays because he wants to.

He thinks that maybe he started to think this way a couple weeks ago, when the incident happened.

Tommy was near the house, and he hadn't noticed how dark it was outside. He was alone, for the most part. Techno was in the farm near him, and he had been trusted to not get in trouble.

He hadn't noticed.

But then there was a loud sound, that made Tommy clap his hands over his ears and whine. He was crying, scorch marks all over his body and sitting in a small crater made in the ground.

Techno rushed to his aid, wearing the clothes he used whenever he was tending to the farm. He took note of the crying child, and the scorch marks, and picked him up, making sure not to hurt him. He tried to sooth the small child, while carrying him inside.

Tubbo and Wilbur entered the room, drawn by the sobs.

"Tommy, Tommy, hey, hey, it's okay, you're safe now." Techno gently reassured the younger, holding him close. Techno was rocking subconsciously when Tommy finally stopped crying.

Tommy hiccuped, clutching onto the older tightly.

"Hey buddy, I have to get something to help your burns." Techno told Tommy, gently unwrapping the child from the hug.

"Don't go." Tommy looked smaller than ever.

"I'll be right back." Techno left with a sad but determined expression. When it was clear that Tommy was on the verge of tears, Wilbur pulled out his guitar, sitting in front of the child.

He strummed slightly, and Tommy's eyes were immediately on him. Wilbur chuckled at that, when Tubbo joined Tommy's side.

He began his strumming again, humming slightly. Tommy seemed to relax, leaning into Tubbo.

Techno entered the room, along with Philza. They smiled at the scene, before Techno lifted Tommy's air and began applying some cream to it. Tommy complied, only flinching a couple of times.

Tommy yawned, leaning onto Techno, who promptly freezed at the contact. 

"Thanks, 'echno."

Wilbur stopped playing, seeing as both of the children were asleep. And Philza was also falling asleep.

"I'm glad we found them."

Techno smiled,

"Me too."


End file.
